Vanderbilt University Medical Center, site of the nation’s first federally funded
diabetes research center, in 2005 launched a comprehensive program to more fully integrate diabetes care, training and clinical research.

The
Vanderbilt-Eskind Diabetes Clinic was named for the late Irwin B. Eskind, M.D., a Nashville physician and philanthropist who chaired the board of the existing
Vanderbilt Diabetes Center. Tom Elasy, M.D., M.P.H., is the clinic’s medical director.

Through the clinic, patients can see specialists and have all
their tests done at one location, starting at childhood and continuing through adult life.

“We want this to be as close to one-stop care as
possible,” says Steven N. Davis, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism and Rudolph H. Kampmeier Professor of
Medicine.

“Our objective is to have Vanderbilt be a place that affords the best care available and to discover new care that we don’t have
yet, so that patients consider this as the place to go for their care, and health care professionals consider it as the place to go for their training,”
adds Daryl K. Granner, M.D., former director of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center, which coordinates all diabetes treatment, prevention and research efforts at the
medical center.

The current director of the diabetes center is Alvin Powers, M.D.

Powers also directs the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training
Center, an NIH-funded grant that provides infrastructure support for diabetes-related research and training programs at Vanderbilt.

“This is a very
exciting time in diabetes,” Powers says. “Through research, there is an improved understanding of the causes of diabetes and the obstacles to
delivering optimal care.”

The Vanderbilt Diabetes Center can trace its beginnings to 1973, when Vanderbilt was awarded the first NIH-funded diabetes
center, under the leadership of Oscar Crofford, M.D.